💡 Where the Ocean Exhales

The latest from Nautilus, and this week’s Facts So Romantic. [View in browser](| [Join Nautilus]( Together with Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here.]( Hello there Nautilus readers, and thanks for joining us. Today we revisit how AI can save the zebras, as well as see where the ocean exhales and marvel at how one novelist is using AI. Plus, in this week’s Facts So Romantic—Earth’s largest natural carbon sink, “mirror neuron” popularity, and more. Check out your question of the day (on melodies) and free story (on genius and madness) below. Have a good one! —Brian Gallagher TECHNOLOGY How AI Can Save the Zebras Scanning animal patterns like bar codes boosts conservation. BY KAREN BAKKER Tanya Berger-Wolf didn’t expect to become an environmentalist. [Continue reading→]( ADVERTISEMENT Restore the Planet, One Mission at a Time If [AI can save zebras](, what if bees can help save elephants? What if dogs can be trained to protect sea turtles? Those are just two of the innovative missions [Planet Wild]( is funding as part of their efforts to restore the planet. [Planet Wild]( is a community of nature lovers pooling their contributions to fund efficient projects that save animals, oceans, and forests. You can [join them]( for as little as $6/month and cancel anytime you want. Nautilus readers get their first month free, just use the code NAUTILUS5. [Join Now]( The latest from Nautilus ENVIRONMENT Where the Ocean Exhales The Southern Ocean controls how much carbon is released into the atmosphere—and our warming world is changing it. BY LIZ GREENE [Continue reading→]( ARTS How AI Helped Write a New Novel Acclaimed writer Mauro Javier Cárdenas used AI in his latest work to surprising effect. BY NICK HILDEN [Continue reading→]( ADVERTISEMENT Rewild the Planet Together Every month, [Planet Wild]( pools member contributions and funds nature restoration where it really matters. [Join us]( today to help save our planet. [Join Now]( FACTS SO ROMANTIC The 5 Best Things We Learned Today The deep ocean is the Earth’s largest natural carbon sink. [Nautilus→]( In 2018, the novelist Mauro Javier Cárdenas trained a real Natural Language Processing dataset using surrealist Leonora Carrington’s uniquely weird prose. [Nautilus→]( In 2013, at the peak of the hype, scientists published more than 300 papers with “mirror neuron” in the title. By 2020, that number had halved, to fewer than 150. [Nautilus→]( The “solar maximum” is the point in the sun’s 11-year cycle when there is the highest number of sunspots. [CNN→]( Replacing all pre-2010 diesel school buses in the United States would require a $60 billion to $80 billion investment, whereas electrifying the entire U.S. school bus fleet would cost roughly 2.5 times as much. [PNAS→]( WE'RE CURIOUS TO KNOW... What are some of your favorite instrumental melodies? Let us know! Reply to this newsletter with your response, briefly explaining your choice, and we’ll reveal the top answers. (This question was inspired by“Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech.”]([)]( Top Answers to Our Previous Question(On the Scientist Whose Life You Would Choose to Live) • The scientist I would choose is the naturalist, explorer, and writer John Muir. Just to have walked the magnificent places that he explored before man and population began to degrade those places would be mind-blowing. I have always felt that he is my spirit animal—a wanderer of the woods with a gift of words to describe the natural places and a fire to preserve them. – Cay L. • I’d choose Leonardo da Vinci because he mixed his science with artistic creations and saw further into the future than any other known scientist. – Stacie S. • Sir David Attenborough. This gentle man has spent his entire life within the different ecosystems of the wondrous planet and working to bring his discoveries of beauty, amazement, and awe to the people. Beautiful work, beautiful life, beautiful human being. – Becky E. QUOTE OF THE DAY “It reads at times like an almost alien text: a transcript from the memory banks of some inorganic species.” [Nick Hilden on Mauro Javier Cárdenas’ latest novel American Abductions.]( Your free story this Thursday! PSYCHOLOGY If You Think You’re a Genius, You’re Crazy Both geniuses and madmen pay attention to what others ignore. BY DEAN KEITH SIMONTON [Continue reading for free→]( Step into the Void “Somewhere across the plain of imminence, shouting into the void …” That’s singer Nate Hardy from the second track of Microwave’s latest album Let’s Start Degeneracy. Voids—of the emotional sort—are a recurring theme across the album from the cheekily self-described “adult mid-tempo psychedelic contemporary rock band from Atlanta, GA.” It’s fitting then, that Nate has chosen to read [this story]( from one of our most prolific contributors, theoretical cosmologist Paul M. Sutter. Sutter tells us, “This story about voids is deeply personal to me, as voids have always struck a chord with me and been the focus of my scientific research. But there's so much more to the concept of nothingness than just their physical manifestation, and it's beautiful to hear echoes of that search in Nate's narration.” You can now [watch]( or [listen]( to Hardy read Sutter’s story “Why We Need to Study Nothing.” [WATCH]( [LISTEN]( P.S. The Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash died on this day in 2015. His struggle with mental illness and paranoid delusions was portrayed in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind. Asked to explain the wild notions he entertained, Nash said it made sense because his hare-brained beliefs “came to me [the same way that my mathematical ideas did](. So I took them seriously.” Today’s newsletter was written by Brian Gallagher Thanks for reading. [Tell us](mailto:brian.gallagher@nautil.us?subject=&body=) your thoughts on today’s note. Plus, if you find our content valuable, consider [becoming a member]( to support our work, and inspire a friend to sign up for [the Nautilus newsletter](. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( Copyright © 2024 NautilusNext, All rights reserved. You were subscribed to the newsletter from [nautil.us](. Our mailing address is: NautilusNext 360 W 36th Street, 7S, New York, NY 10018 Don't want to hear from us anymore? [Unsubscribe](